“Once a blooming red rose, full of streaming life in its veins.Now a wilting black petal rupturing with death and pain.”

“It hurts to be around life. People don't understand how close death is, right over their shoulders, around the block, at the end of a street. It's everywhere.”

“Rage washes through me like a fucking wave crashing against the shore. I want to kill Caleb. Beat him to death in the most painful ways.”

“So I let my shame own me, kill me, wilt me away into a thousand dead flakes, knowing if I kept it all in, she would never have to learn the dirtiness that was forever inside me--the bad, the ugly, the twisted. She could go on living her life happy, just like she deserved.”

“I can do pain. That’s the easy part of life. It’s everything else, happiness, laughter, love, that’s fucking complicated.”

“I just let the pain take over, allowing it to numb the pain of being left behind.”

“Life is full of luck, like getting dealt a good hand, or simply by being in the right place at the right time. Some people get luck handed to them, a second chance, a save. It can happen heroically, or by a simple coincidence , but there are those who don’t get luck on a shiny platter, who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, who don’t get saved.”